Georgia Made... Georgia Grown...

Although born in Georgia, I was a military brat, leaving the state before I could walk. Moved back, married military and, at least for a bit, continued to move around again before settling back in my birth state. While I can't claim to have hit every corner of the globe, I've lived in enough places to say with some credibility that Georgia is the best of the best.

Georgia has a little bit of everything a person could want and a lot to be discovered. A little bit? Well, travel to New York and try to choose which show to see on Broadway. Georgia has a lot of top notch theater, but a little bit  in comparison to the overwhelming offerings in New York, "the City".

Go spend a month in Washington, D.C. doing nothing but visiting the Smithsonian and other museums - you'll need more time! Georgia has a wealth of history and fabulous museums, enough to keep you busy for months and months, if you're willing to get in the car. Not quite comparable to the volume in D.C., but they are well worth multiple visits.

I could go on! No matter where you're from or what you're looking for that's good, you can find it in Georgia.

Don't misunderstand though --- while we may have a little bit of everything, we also have a lot of some things that are uniquely "Georgia". Fantastic restaurants, home grown foods, talent in every artistic corner, festivals, warm people, thriving businesses, fun beaches, oh, the list is long.

Georgia is like one of those gift baskets people give sometimes when they're not quite sure what you might want. It's chocked full of everything imaginable. You just keep finding new things down in the basket, all different, all wonderful and all to be appreciated.

Because there are so many things in the Georgia 'gift basket', it can be daunting trying to find many of the great things created by Georgians. We want to support those who live in our state, shout about their great talents and accomplishments, figure out where to go, and eat or buy Georgia grown foods.

Now there is an excellent resource being developed by Camille and Bill Ronay, creators of event2000.com and of Ronay Guide fame, to find and share the best of the best in Georgia: Georgia Made Georgia Grown (GMGG).

I can't top their description: "Georgia Made Georgia Grown LLC markets and promotes artists, craft makers, entertainers, musicians, authors, food products creators, agri-tourism venue owners and other creative entrepreneurs in all 159 counties!... Whether you are looking for unique products and services as a gift, looking for the best in arts, crafts, food and entertainment for yourself, or looking for corporate resources from local sources in Georgia, GMGG has what you need."

I have been seeing tweets and tidbits on Facebook for a while, but only recently really took a good look at the site. Impressive to say the least. GMGG is going to become "the" place to be for Georgia's creative and entrepreneurial talent as well as an excellent resource for anyone visiting or living in Georgia.

If you are a Georgia farmer, artists, crafter, entertainer, serve Georgia grown in your restaurant, shop owner, or create anything in Georgia, go check out the site. If you'd like to find sell items made or grown in Georgia, go check out the site.

Get on board early. Based on past performance and the agressive marketing the Ronay's have already undertaken, this is going to be another successful venture by the pair. They are active in promoting Georgia and GMGG is developing into an outstanding resource. If you're on Facebook, be sure to find them and hit the "like" button on each of their GMGG channels (links are on the website). You'll receive a lot of quality information and learn so much about your fellow creative Georgians.

If you love the state and want to support the people and businesses that make it a fantastic place to live, go visit Georgia Made Georgia Grown.

- Janet McGregor Dunn
Editor, Georgia Front Page

Drivers Urged to Watch for Wildlife in the Road

Forget the chicken: Why did the turtle cross the road?

In spring and early summer, probably to find food, a mate or a nest site.

Particularly after rain, turtles and other wildlife wander, sometimes venturing by day onto county roads and state highways that double as death traps for the unsuspecting creatures. The road-kill lineup varies from diamondback terrapins on the coast to fledgling mockingbirds along back roads in the Piedmont.

Senior wildlife biologist John Jensen of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources encouraged drivers to be alert. “At this time of the year, be more aware of what might be in the road,” Jensen said.

Road-kill statistics are not comprehensive. But a 17-month Purdue University study counted 10,500 animals and more than 65 species dead – mostly frogs and other amphibians – on 11 miles of roads in Indiana. Closer to home, the Jekyll Island Sea Turtle Center estimated that vehicles hit and killed more than 300 diamondback terrapins in 2007 just on the Jekyll Island causeway, according to a University of Georgia article on a State Wildlife Grant study assessing the state’s diamondback terrapin populations.

Female terrapins search out high ground to nest. In the marsh these turtles inhabit, causeways and other roads are high ground, said Jensen, who works with the Nongame Conservation Section in DNR’s Wildlife Resources Division.

Other creatures pay a toll, too. Box turtles, found statewide, move more after rains in spring and summer, searching out earthworms and other prey, mates and, for females, places to lay eggs. The rain not only softens the ground, it can mask the turtle’s scent, helping safeguard the buried eggs.

Turtles are long-lived, late-bearing species whose young already face low odds of survival. “It’s not good for any turtle to be lost,” Jensen said. “But for a gravid … female that gets hurt and killed on the road, you’ve lost her and her eggs.”

Jim Ozier, a Nongame Conservation Section program manager, said young birds also often end up on the asphalt. This spring, he has seen immature mockingbirds hunkered down on country roads where nearby fencerows serve as nesting habitat. Fledgling killdeer, likely from roadside nests, also sometimes scamper into the path of traffic.

The potential for run-ins increases as development crisscrosses Georgia’s landscape with more roads, further fragmenting wildlife habitat.

Ozier said the threat posed by vehicles is not a conservation issue for most species. But drivers who are watching the road can sometimes easily avoid turning a road-crossing creature into a punch line.

“We certainly don’t encourage motorists to risk human safety in any way,” Ozier said. “There’s nothing you can do if a squirrel decides to hide under your tire, but any driver should be capable of safely avoiding a turtle.”

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UGA licenses invention that kills food-borne pathogens in minutes

A new technology that kills dangerous pathogens on food at home and in restaurants, grocery stores, beverage-manufacturing and food-processing facilities has been licensed to the maker of FIT Fruit and Vegetable Wash™. The licensing agreement between the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc. and HealthPro Brands, Inc., FIT’s parent company, vastly extends the range of applications for the company’s current anti-microbial food wash.

The exclusive license, which includes sublicensing rights, is effective in select countries around the world, including the U.S.

The new technology, invented by scientists from the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety, can kill significant numbers of dangerous E. coli and salmonella in less than one minute, but it is recommended that the wash be applied from one to five minutes. The technology can be used as a food wash, with commercial applications for the produce, poultry, meat and egg processing industries.

“The re-formulated FIT food wash will kill more harmful microbes faster,” said Mike Doyle, Center for Food Safety director, and—together with microbiologist Tong Zhao—one of the technology’s inventors. “The new anti-microbial food wash is orders of magnitude more powerful and twice faster.”

Doyle is an internationally recognized authority on food safety whose research focuses on developing methods to detect and control food-borne bacterial pathogens at all levels of the food continuum, from farm to table. He has served as a scientific adviser to many groups, including the World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“The new technology takes our current FIT product to a whole new level of sanitization,” said Todd Wichmann, president and CEO of HealthPro Brands. “We look forward to getting our improved product into the hands of industry.”

Importantly, Doyle said, the wash has no effects on smell, taste or appearance of the foods that are treated, even delicate produce. “The new product doesn’t interfere with the shelf-life of sensitive foods,” he said.

Like the original FIT Fruit and Vegetable Wash now used at home by consumers and by food service industry, the new antimicrobial wash uses a combination of two inexpensive components that are safe for humans and the environment. The new FIT product also will be available as a spray and immersion solution for foods ranging from fragile leafy produce, fruits and vegetables, to more robust foods such as meats and poultry, or food preparation equipment and food transportation vehicles. For the greatest efficacy, the product is used at different concentrations and different periods of exposure for different applications.

FIT will replace chlorine as the new standard for reducing harmful bacteria levels in industrial settings, said Wichmann. Chlorine’s drawbacks are multiple: it is toxic at high concentrations, it may produce off-flavors and undesirable appearance in certain food products; it can damage equipment; it can only be used, stored and transported in conjunction with specialized equipment and trained personnel; and because it may be harmful to the environment, it also is subject to environmental regulations. Chlorine may also damage certain seeds and delicate sprouts.

“We can’t rely on chlorine any longer,” Doyle said. “In addition to being safer and more acceptable in terms of appearance and smell, our studies have shown this new technology to be considerably more effective than chlorine.” The product outperforms other food sanitization technologies, such as ozone, as well. Ozone, a short-lived gas, must be produced using specialized equipment immediately upon use, thus making its use inaccessible to the majority of companies in the food industry.

Gennaro Gama, a senior technology manager with UGARF, said that the new product also could be used as an anti-microbial additive in food products such as ground meats, butters and pastes.

“We are very pleased to have established a partnership with HealthPro,” Gama said. “We believe that our respective technologies interact synergistically and will lead to the short-term development of very versatile products that can be used in virtually all segments of the food industry and with considerable potential to mitigate public health issues associated with food poisoning.”

Gama continued, “We are also grateful to HealthPro for agreeing with UGARF’s request to retain the ability to license the technology for humanitarian purposes in Sub-Saharan Africa, where contamination of the food chain is ubiquitous and easy counter-measures are frequently unavailable to those populations.”

FIT was originally developed by Procter & Gamble and was sold to HealthPro Brands, Inc. in 2006. FIT is the only produce wash certified Kosher and recommended by the American Vegetarian Association. FIT is available in select grocery stores or can be purchased online at Amazon.com.

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CDC Study Finds 3 Million U.S. Children have Food or Digestive Allergies

The number of young people who had a food or digestive allergy increased 18 percent between 1997 and 2007, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2007, approximately 3 million U.S. children and teenagers under age 18 – or nearly 4 percent of that age group – were reported to have a food or digestive allergy in the previous 12 months, compared to just over 2.3 million (3.3 percent) in 1997.

The findings are published in a new data brief, “Food Allergy Among U.S. Children: Trends in Prevalence and Hospitalizations.” The data are from the National Health Interview Survey and the National Hospital Discharge Survey, both conducted by CDC′s National Center for Health Statistics.

The report found that eight types of food account for 90 percent of all food allergies: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy, and wheat. Reactions to these foods by an allergic person can range from a tingling sensation around the mouth and lips, to hives and even death, depending on the severity of the reaction.

Children with food allergy are two to four times more likely to have other related conditions such as asthma and other allergies, compared to children without food allergies, the report said.
Other highlights:

* Boys and girls had similar rates of food allergy – 3.8 percent for boys and 4.1 percent for girls.
* Approximately 4.7 percent of children younger than 5 years had a reported food allergy compared to 3.7 percent of children and teens aged 5 to 17 years.
* Hispanic children had lower rates of reported food allergy (3.1 percent) than non-Hispanic white (4.1 percent) or non-Hispanic black children (4 percent.)
* In 2007, 29 percent of children with food allergy also had reported asthma compared to 12 percent of children without food allergy.
* Approximately 27 percent of children with food allergy had reported eczema or skin allergy, compared to 8 percent of children without food allergy.
* Over 30 percent of children with food allergy also had reported respiratory allergy, compared with 9 percent of children with no food allergy.
* From 2004 to 2006, there were approximately 9,537 hospital discharges per year with a diagnosis related to food allergy among children from birth to 17 years. Hospital discharges with a diagnosis related to food allergy increased significantly over time between 1998-2000 through 2004-2006.

The mechanisms by which a person develops an allergy to specific foods are largely unknown. Food allergy is more prevalent in children than adults. Most affected children will outgrow food allergies, although food allergy can be a lifelong concern.

The full report is available at www.cdc.gov/nchs.

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News to Use in Fayetteville, Atlanta, Augusta, Peachtree City and all of Georgia

FDA Issues Interim Safety and Risk Assessment of Melamine and Melamine-related Compounds in Food

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today issued the results of its interim safety and risk assessment of melamine and melamine-related compounds in food, including infant formula.

A safety/risk assessment is a scientifically based methodology used to estimate the risk to human health from exposure to specified compounds. It is based on available data and certain scientific assumptions in the absence of data. The purpose of the FDA interim safety/risk assessment was to identify the level of melamine and melamine-related compounds in food which would not raise public health concerns. The interim safety/risk assessment evaluated the melamine exposure in infant formula and in other foods.

The safety/risk assessment, prompted by reports of melamine contamination of milk-derived ingredients and finished food products containing milk manufactured in China, was conducted by scientists from FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and the Center for Veterinary Medicine. The FDA reviewed scientific literature on melamine toxicity.

Infant Formula

FDA is currently unable to establish any level of melamine and melamine-related compounds in infant formula that does not raise public health concerns. In large part, this is because of gaps in our scientific knowledge about the toxicity of melamine and its analogues in infants, including:

1. the consequences of the continuous use of infant formulas as the sole source of nutrition;
2. the uncertainties associated with the possible presence and co-ingestion of more than one melamine analogue; and
3. for premature infants with immature kidney function, the possibility that they may be fed these formulas as the sole source of nutrition and thus on a body weight basis experience greater levels of intake for a longer time than is experienced by term infants.

There is too much uncertainty to set a level in infant formula and rule out any public health concern. However, it is important to understand that this does not mean that any exposure to any detectable level of melamine and melamine–related compounds in formula will result in harm to infants.

Other Food Products

In food products other than infant formula, the FDA concludes that levels of melamine and melamine-related compounds below 2.5 parts per million (ppm) do not raise concerns. This conclusion assumes a worst case exposure scenario in which 50% of the diet is contaminated at this level, and applies a 10-fold safety factor to the Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) to account for any uncertainties. The TDI is an estimate of the maximum amount of an agent to which an individual could be exposed on a daily basis over the course of a lifetime without an appreciable health risk.

FDA continues to screen products, collaborate with foreign governments and their regulatory agencies, and monitor reports of contamination from international sources to help ensure that potentially contaminated products from foreign sources are examined if imported into the United States. If products are adulterated because they contain melamine and/or a melamine-related compound, the agency will take appropriate actions to prevent the products from entering commerce.

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Inaugural Savannah Craft Brew Fest on August 29-30

The Savannah Area Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) recently announced that Savannah will present the inaugural Savannah Craft Brew Fest on August 29-30, 2008 at the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center.

The first ever Savannah Craft Brew Fest will feature the best of Georgia craft beers and food pairings on Friday, August 29 at 6 p.m. in the Ballroom at the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center.

On Saturday, August 30, the Craft Brew Grand Tasting event will be held on the Esplanade of the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center from 11 a.m.- 5 p.m., followed by price fixed dinners from area restaurants featuring delicious beer and food pairings. There will be live, regional entertainment, local food vendors and souvenir items for sale.

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Georgia Tech Groups Support Local Food Efforts

The Georgia Tech Office of Environmental Stewardship and the Georgia Tech Students Organizing For Sustainability have signed A Plan For Atlanta’s Sustainable Food Future: The Atlanta Local Food Initiative (AFLI). The plan outlines goals and objectives designed to create a food system that provides safe, nutritious, and affordable food from local, sustainable farms and gardens. The initiative, known as ALFI, seeks to “enhance human health, promote environmental renewal, foster local economies, and link rural and urban communities” (http://www.georgiaorganics.org/Files/ALFI.pdf).

“Georgia Tech has been a leader in sustainability for over a decade,” said Georgia Tech’s Director of Environmental Stewardship, Marcia Kinstler. “As advocates for a sustainable campus, we fully support initiatives involving local and organic food supplies.”

Georgia Tech students also support the ALFI initiative. Georgia Tech Students Organizing for Sustainability (GT S.O.S.) member Liam Rattray worked to bring local organic foods to campus through a community supported agriculture program. The program allows students, faculty, and staff to purchase fresh, organic produce on a weekly basis. The GT S.O.S also works to engage the Georgia Tech and Atlanta communities through discussions about buying organics, composting, and creating community gardens.

Giant Wasps Not After Humans

The scary two-and-a-half-inch wasps hovering over Julie Barkley’s flowerbeds drove the Athens, Ga., resident inside and to her computer.

“I have three children, and we avoid the outdoors because not only of the size of this insect but of the vicious appearance, too,” she said.

Online, she learned that the wasps are called cicada killers. To find out how to get rid of them, she shot off an e-mail to University of Georgia Cooperative Extension.

The answer she got back would likely surprise most proactive, bug-spraying Georgians. UGA Extension entomologist Will Hudson told her to leave the wasps alone. There’s really no reason for homeowners to try to kill them. They aren’t after humans. They’re after just one thing: cicadas.

“Try to see them as another part of Georgia’s wildlife,” he said.

Summer is cicada season, the time the insects start to hatch and the female cicada killer goes on the hunt, he said.

When the wasp catches a cicada, she stings it, carries it to her burrow and lays an egg on it. She lays many eggs, but each one gets a cicada. A female egg may get two, Hudson said. The larva feeds on the paralyzed, but not yet dead, cicada. It pupates and emerge the next year to complete the cycle.

“The wasps are in your yard looking for food for the next generation,” Hudson told Barkley. “You are just another part of the landscape to them, and they pose no threat. While the wasps can deliver a painful sting if provoked, you pretty much have to grab one or try to prevent her from taking a cicada to her burrow to get stung. Who’s going to do that?”

As a child, Hudson and his brother used to chase cicada killers around and try to hit them with brooms. The boys never got stung, he said.

For the past week, Hudson has been fielding calls about the wasps from UGA Extension agents all over Georgia. Most of the calls come from Georgians who want to know what to spray on the wasps to kill them.

Unlike bees, wasps and fire ants, cicada killers are not social insects. They have no workers or soldiers whose sole job is to protect the nest. The female cicada killer is on her own.

“If she stings you and you swat her in retaliation, that’s it,” Hudson said. “She’s not going to be able to reproduce. With bees, the colony can afford to lose some of them and it doesn’t matter. She’s all there is.”

Cicadas can be pests, Hudson said. They lay their eggs in the stems of trees. When they start hatching, a lot of twigs start dying, especially during a heavy outbreak.

“That’s usually not any big deal, but for nurserymen, it can be a problem,” Hudson said. “It changes the growth habit of the tree they’re trying to grow and sell.”

Hudson reminded Barkley that looks can be deceiving and not to be fooled by something’s appearance.

“Hummingbirds look like they could peck the stew out of you with that long, sharp beak, right?” he said. “Cicada killers are no more threatening than hummingbirds, unless you are a cicada.”

By Stephanie Schupska
University of Georgia